FADA P-54 commercial truck from 1955, 675 cc, 22 HP, max. speed 70 km/h
The FADA P-54 was the first utility vehicle manufactured by the brand FADA company, renamed SAVA in 1957, a medium-sized tricycle much more sophisticated than the equipment then existing on the Spanish market, the small “motocarros”.
Since the end of the Spanish Civil War, the Spanish automotive industry was non-existent. The country was hit by international sanctions and General Franco locked himself into a policy of total autarky. All subsidiaries of foreign manufacturers importing vehicles or producing them locally having closed their factories due to lack of supplies of imported raw materials and components.
With the exception of a few craftsmen, until 1952 Spain had no manufacturer specializing in the production of utility vehicles.
History of FADA & SAVA
In 1938, Francesco Scrimieri, an employee of the Italian group FIAT, came to Spain as a civilian volunteer with Mussolini’s fascist troops. Assigned to the Valladolid mobile park, at the end of the civil war, he decided to stay in Spain. In 1940, with an Italian friend, he created the company FADA – Fabricación de Artículos de Aluminio (Manufacture of Aluminum Articles), a company specializing in aluminum kitchen utensils. Shortly after, his friend and associate decided to return to Italy, his native country, and Francesco Scrimieri remained alone at the head of the company.
The company was growing rapidly and diversifying. In 1952, it began to manufacture small scooters, with the help of a manufacturer of the famous Italian “motocarri”.
In 1954, FADA presented the P-54, a three-wheeled high capacity utility vehicle with a payload of 1.5 T. In 1957, the company SAVA – Sociedad Anónima de Vehículos Automóviles was created in order to raise the capital necessary to in the face of strategic changes. It incorporates the FADA company and continues the production of the 3-wheeled P-54 under the SAVA brand, but with a load increased to 2 tons and above all a new advanced cabin with more classic shapes.
SAVA will then develop its offer with more classic 4-wheel models refined from 1959, as soon as the company has received government authorization to manufacture this type of vehicle at the rate of 1,000 units per year at most. in particular with the SAVA P-58 whose lines had been studied internally and, from 1962, with the manufacture under BMC license, of the SAVA LDO-5 van.
The FADA P-54 is a heavy utility three-wheeler equipped with a 4-stroke engine with electric start, a 5-speed gearbox plus reverse and a closed metal cabin with sliding windows on the doors.
This first attempt to market a heavy three-wheeled utility tricycle was to meet with very limited success.
